


Best Man

by CarolPeletier



Category: Fear the Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-07-13 20:50:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7136600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarolPeletier/pseuds/CarolPeletier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carol is getting married, and her best friend Daryl isn't exactly thrilled.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Best Man

Disclaimer: I own nothing from The Walking Dead.  I’m just borrowing the characters for a little while.

Best Man

“You don’t sound psyched.”  Carol stared across the table at him, her gaze set on his. 

“I’m psyched.”  His voice was flat, a little forced.

“Well, I’m convinced,” Carol snorted, leaning her head back and taking another shot.  She made a face and slammed the empty shot glass down on the coffee table.  He sat, Indian-style, across from her, one hand picking absently at a stray hair on the joint of his big toe, while the other was curled around a full shot glass. 

“How many’s that make you?”

“Three,” she said with a shrug.  “You, however, haven’t even taken your second.  C’mon.  Catch up.  I don’t want to be the only one embarrassingly hung over tomorrow.”

“You know, if you gotta drink the night before your wedding, maybe that means somethin’.”

“Oh hush,” she scoffed.  “It’s a bachelorette party.  I’m supposed to drink.”

“Ain’t no bachelorette party.  It’s me and you and a bottle of tequila.  I’d say that’s a Friday night.”

“Only it’s Wednesday.”

“Who the hell gets married on a Thursday afternoon, anyway?” Daryl asked with a smirk, bumping Carol’s knee with his foot under the coffee table. 

“Ed doesn’t want a big wedding.  And I don’t want all the attention on me.  I just want the people that matter to be there.  My parents.  You.  I know you’re not thrilled to be my maid of honor, but…”

“Man of honor,” he pointed out, sucking down his second shot.  Finally.  “The bride’s best man.  I am the best.”  He waggled his eyebrows at her.

“Right,” she said with a laugh and an eye roll.  “Michonne’s coming.  Ed’s parents.”

“The assholes.”

“Hey!  Those are my future in-laws, thank you very much.”

“Yeah, so I heard.”  It came out bitterer than he’d intended, but the truth of the matter was that Carol marrying Ed Peletier sounded like the worst idea in the world. 

“Can you just try to pretend to be happy for me?” Carol asked quietly, running her fingertip along the edge of the shot glass. 

“Sorry,” he muttered. 

“Careful.  I might just fire you from your man of honor duties.”  She crinkled her nose and attempted to get a smile out of him, but he just tossed back that third shot and leveled a hard stare at her.  “Daryl, we’ve been best friends since high school.  I need your support here.”  Daryl sighed then, watching the way Carol’s smile faded and the light in her pretty blue eyes darkened just a little bit.  “Just think.  We can go down to the court house, get it over with, and then we’ll have the reception where you can get drunk and maybe even score with your date.  You did get a date, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” he muttered.

“So, who’s the lucky girl?”  Daryl felt his cheeks glow hot, knowing damned well he didn’t have any fucking idea who to bring to Carol and Ed’s reception.  The truth was, he didn’t even want to go.  He didn’t want to see Ed pawing all over her after a few too many glasses of spiked punch.  He didn’t want to see Carol so fucking happy with this lumberjack sized asshole that seemed to stare at every pair of tits in his periphery when Carol wasn’t paying attention. 

But that oversized asshole had won Carol’s heart.  Somehow.  Someway.   Maybe the guy was charming.  Maybe he had an anaconda-sized penis and knew how to use it.  Daryl really didn’t fucking care, because when it came down to it, Carol was marrying Ed, and Daryl had never gotten the nerve to even tell her how fucking much he loved her.

“Daryl?”

“Huh?”

“Your date?”

“Oh.  Uh.  You’ll meet her there.  She’s a great girl.  Great tits, y’know?”

“Daryl Dixon, you’re an ass man through and through.  You’re lying through your teeth.”

“Fuck,” he groaned, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands.  “This shit’s strong.”

“Mmmhmm,” she murmured, narrowing her eyes at him.  “Daryl?”  She took a deep breath.  “Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah,” he said with a shrug, unfolding his legs and stretching them out so his legs lay alongside hers under the coffee table.  He leaned back against the ottoman and watched her as she chewed her lip and picked at the cuticles on her nails. 

“Do you think I’ll be a good mom?”

“What?  You’re thinkin’ about that already?”

“Well, I’m getting married tomorrow.  Ed wants a big family, and I’d like to have one or two.  I’m just afraid I won’t know what to…I mean, I was an only child.  I didn’t have any little sisters or brothers to take care of.”

“Well, fuck, I don’t know,” Daryl grunted.  The thought of her pregnant with that son of a bitch’s baby hurt a little more than he would have liked. 

“Daryl, come on.  I need best friend time.  That’s why I called you tonight.”  She frowned.  “I’m scared.”  Daryl sighed then, pushing the tequila bottle away and moving to grab her foot under the table.  He pulled it into his lap and gave it a squeeze. 

“Alright.  No more digs at the ball and chain.  Talk to me.”

“I love kids.  I mean, I want to be a teacher, and kids tend to like me.  But what if I have a kid and it hates me?”

“Won’t happen,” he said with a shake of his head.  “You’re awesome.  Kid would be lucky to have you as a mom.”  He bit back the urge to embellish and say how Ed, on the other hand, would be a shitty dad.  Probably as shitty of a dad as he would be a husband.  But he swallowed it back and managed a little smile for her.

“What if…five years from now…”  He leaned forward then, watching her closely.  “What if this is a mistake?”  She sighed softly, and Daryl felt his head beginning to swim a little.  He was all too aware of how warm and soft her foot was in his hand and how her lips pouted a little and how she sighed softly as he massaged his thumb against the ball of her foot.  “This is where you’re supposed to say ‘of course you’re not making a mistake.’”

“Right.  Man of honor duties.  Look, the most important thing is if you’re happy.  Are you happy?”  Carol bit her lip.

“Sure I am.”

“Well, I’m convinced,” he snorted.  Carol eyed him for a moment.  She grabbed for the bottle of tequila and poured herself another shot.  But she didn’t take it.  She put the bottle down, glass against glass, and she watched him.  He looked at her and then looked away, and she felt her stomach coil into a knot.  It always came down to this.  They’d known one another for going on eight years, and she’d been madly in love with him since the summer before junior year.  Only, she could never read him.  She’d dreamed of him, fantasized about what it might feel like to hold his hand or to kiss his lips or to taste the salt of his skin.  And there had been many occasions where she’d thought she’d seen him look at her in a certain way.  But he’d never made a move.  And she’d dated guys, and he’d dated girls, and they always ended up together on Friday nights, binge watching their favorite movies and shows and enjoying the time they had together.

And then Ed had come along, and Carol had resigned herself to the idea of settling, because Daryl obviously hadn’t felt the way she’d felt for him.  And it was exhausting and heartbreaking, but somehow, Ed had wormed his way into her heart.  And she’d liked him.  She cared for him.  And she knew that with enough time and effort, she could be truly happy.  He was charming but could be an asshole, especially when it came to Daryl.  And, oh, she’d seen him look at other women, but he always came to her bed at the end of the night.  It wasn’t perfect, but clearly, life wasn’t perfect.

“Nobody’s happy all the time, right?” she asked, considering taking that shot. 

“What makes you happy?  Just think about it.”  He leaned back a little, eyelids heavy from exhaustion, lips tingling as his head swam a little more.  His stomach was coiling, and his face felt like fire when his gaze dragged down to the dip in the neck of her shirt.  “You’re gettin’ married tomorrow, and I’m gonna be there to stand by your side.  If this is what you want, I want ya to have it.”  He swallowed the thick feeling in his throat and willed his stomach to stop churning.  He saw her flinch then, saw the way her fingers tapped against the glass of the coffee table.  And then she picked up her shot glass and downed the contents in one swallow.

The truth was, when she thought of what made her happy, her mind came racing back to him.  To his laugh when she told cheesy, stupid jokes that were lame but he’d laugh anyway.  To the way they could fall into an easy banter and pick at one another but be supportive at the same time.  To the way he’d always been there for her, for the times he’d shown up with a bottle of booze and a box of candy after a particularly nasty break-up or relationship low.  He’d always been there for her, and she’d always tried to be there for him, and in the end, they’d always been comfortable with one another, able to be themselves.  They could bitch at each other, they could joke with each other, and they could be complete dorks with each other and there was no judgment. 

They got each other, and this relationship was the most important one in her life.  There was a reason she was with him on the last night of her single life.  She was drinking with him, trying to hold onto that last aspect of happiness that she knew she could only feel when she was with him.  She was drinking with him, pressing him with questions, trying to talk herself into—or maybe out of—making a potentially huge mistake.  And it would be a mistake.  She knew it.  She didn’t love Ed the way women were expected to love their husbands.  She enjoyed his company, but at the end of a good date, she’d always ended up on the phone with Daryl, talking to him, wanting him to know the intimate details of her life.  Because he was the one person she wanted to share those intimacies with.

And now her heart hurt.

She pushed the shot glass away and stood up, feeling all the booze rush to her head.  She teetered there for a minute, and her face went flush.  Daryl stood then, knocking over the bottle of tequila, watching it splash onto the carpet.

“Fuck,” he hissed.  “M’sorry.”

“It’s ok.  It’ll wash.”  She stood there, watching the liquid seep into the carpet, making no effort to move to clean it.  Daryl eyed her for a moment before padding to the kitchen to grab a towel.  He proceeded to clean up his mess, and Carol took the opportunity to flop down onto the couch and cover her face with a pillow.

It wasn’t long before she felt a nudge at her foot.

“Hey.”  She pulled the pillow away and cracked one eye open to look up at him.  He flopped down next to her, sitting so close their thighs touched.  “So you marry him.  He makes good money, gives you what you need.  Clothes.  Food.  Money.  But if you ain’t happy, you can always get a guy on the side.  You know, twenty years from now you might be the hot cougar on your street with the twenty-year-old boy toy on the side.”

“Now that’s depressing,” she laughed, feeling tears prickle at her eyes.  Though she wasn’t certain they were from the laughter.  “You really don’t like him, do you?”

“No, I really don’t,” he murmured.  “I actually kinda hate him.”  Those shots were finally catching up with him.  He sighed heavily, and Carol sighed, too.  “My face is warm.”

“You’re a little drunk,” she laughed, reaching over to touch his hand.

“Pot, meet kettle,” he pointed out.  She laughed again and snorted, and Daryl couldn’t help but find the crinkle of her nose to be the cutest damned thing he’d ever seen.  Why did she have to be so fucking beautiful?  He pulled his hand away, running it over his face and settling it against his own stomach.  He could feel her staring at him, and his tongue suddenly felt dry.  “I ain’t that drunk.  M’stupid is what I am.”

“No you aren’t,” she said softly.  “I’m just glad you’re being honest.”

“Pfft,” he snorted.

“What?”

“If I was bein’ honest, there’s a whole lot more I’d say.” 

“Oh?” she asked, eyebrows rising as she turned her body a little more toward his.  He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, and he leaned his head back a little, closing his eyes as his mind raced at the feeling of the heat radiating off of her body.  He could smell her perfume, and he wondered if her neck tasted as sweet as it smelled. 

“If I was bein’ honest, I’d tell ya not to marry him.  I’d tell ya that maybe he does love ya.  Maybe he can make ya happy.  But he ain’t the only man out there, and you could do a hell of a lot better.” 

“It’s not like I’ve had a lot of options.  You know my track record.  Ed’s been here.  He’s…good.  He’s stable.”

“Yeah, I can see him ten years from now: balding, drivin’ a shiny red car and catcallin’ co-eds so he can maybe feel like a young stud again.”

“Daryl,” Carol protested.

“No, I mean, I’m sure you’ll be real happy with him.  You’ll be barefoot and pregnant a year from now, and he’ll tell ya that you don’t gotta work, ‘cause he’ll provide for you and the kids.  And maybe it’ll sound nice at first, but it’s just his way of keepin’ control, of keepin’ you home so you ain’t out screwin’ around like he probably will be.”  He watched the way her expression glassed over, and he realized he’d say way too much.  “Fuck.  I think I am drunk.”  He grunted then, sitting up a little.

“So that’s what you think my future looks like?”

“Hell, I don’t know what I’m sayin’.  I’m just…don’t worry ‘bout me.”  He stood then, and Carol watched as he moved across the room, needing to put some space between him and her and that radiating heat that seemed to jump off of her skin and cling to his.

“I think you know exactly what you’re saying,” she said quietly, standing up but making no move to come closer.  Even through the haze of tequila and exhaustion, he knew he’d hurt her somehow, and he felt like such an asshole.

“Hey, you know how I get when I’m drinkin’.”

“Really fucking candid,” she pointed out.  She knew him better than he knew himself.  “While we’re being honest, you really don’t have a date tomorrow, do you?”

“No,” he muttered. 

“Why not?”

“Just didn’t think to ask anybody.”  She nodded then, chewing her lip between her teeth.  “Didn’t really wanna go at all, but you said you needed me.  I gotta be there for you.”

“You don’t _have_ to.  If you don’t want to be there, don’t come.  I’m not forcing you.”  She felt her hands beginning to shake, and she stuffed them in her pockets.  “I wouldn’t want to put you out.”

“Aw, Christ,” he muttered.  “It ain’t like that.  Just don’t really feel like watchin’ you throw your life away.”

“That’s what you think I’m doing?” she asked, voice a little tighter now, a little lower as her eyes flashed with something that resembled anger but leaned closer to heartbreak. 

“Look, if ya love the guy, marry him!  Just don’t expect me to sit here and pretend that everything’s gonna be great, ‘cause I don’t think it is.  But if you wanna prove me wrong, then prove me wrong.  Marry the guy.  Have a dozen fucking Peletier babies and make a fool outta me, ‘cause maybe that’s what this is about.  Let’s see how many more times Daryl can walk around biting his tongue ‘cause he’s too much of a fuckin’ pussy to tell his best friend how he really feels!”  Carol flinched then, jaw going slack for a moment as Daryl froze in realization of what he’d just said.

“How—how do you feel?” she asked. 

“Christ.  Nevermind.  I told you how I feel.  I feel like Ed’s the wrong guy for you.” 

“That’s not what you feel.”

“Oh, you tellin’ me what I feel now?”  His face was red now, and he was shaking, and he was feeling pretty irritated, but the fact of the matter was that Carol’s lip was trembling, and now all he wanted to do was hug her and tell her he didn’t mean it.  Anything to make her smile again.  Boy, when he fucked up, he really fucked up.  “You really wanna know how I feel?  You wanna know how I’ve dreamed ‘bout you almost every night since we met?  You wanna know how I ripped up a whole notebook’s worth of paper tryin’ to write out how I felt ‘cause I couldn’t say it?  You wanna know how I finally got up the nerve to ask you to prom, and then you came runnin’ down the hall with this big smile on your face, tellin’ me how Rick Grimes asked you?  You wanna know how I wanted to rip Ed’s fuckin’ head off every time he looked at another woman, ‘cause he couldn’t see what he had right in front of him?” 

He couldn’t read her.  Her face was pale, and her eyes were locked on his, glassy with tears and shimmering in the dull light of her dusty table lamp.

“You happy now?  You gonna sleep better tonight knowin’ I ain’t been able to sleep right for the past month just tryin’ to figure out a way to tell you I love you before you can make the biggest mistake of your life?” 

“Daryl…”  She stepped toward him, uncertain of what to say or do.  She’d never seen him so worked up like this, but she knew one thing with absolute certainty.  He had been more honest with her now than  she’d ever been to him about her own feelings.  And now she felt like somebody had shoved a knife in her gut and twisted it. 

“Don’t.”  He stepped back and shook his head.  “I gotta sleep this off.  I’m gonna wake up in the mornin’, and this is gonna be a fuckin’ nightmare.  I just...I need ya to forget.  I need to forget.”  And then he disappeared, almost stumbled down the hall to her spare bedroom and shut the door behind himself.  She flinched when she heard the lock click into place, followed by the thunk and squeak of him hitting the mattress. 

Meanwhile, she stood in the center of her living room, chest heaving, heart racing, breath coming in labored gasps, head swimming as she forced herself to believe this had actually just happened.  But it was nearly impossible.  What the hell _had_ just happened, and how the hell did her world just completely turn upside down?

*~*~*~*

Maybe she could have forgotten about it if she’d gotten any bit of sleep.  She’d lay there in a daze, staring up at the ceiling, bothered by the incessant ticking coming from the clock in the hallway.  What a stupid place for a clock.

She had tossed and turned for hours, listening for any sign of him, hoping to even hear him get up to sleep it off next to the toilet.  But he hadn’t.  He was either sleeping like a rock or he was puking in her spare room waste bin.  She hadn’t heard a sound all night.

And it was nearing dawn when she finally heard him stirring.  She sat up in her bed, eyes bleary and itchy from lack of sleep.  Her heart hammered against her ribs, and in her sobered state, she could still remember every single word he’d said to her.  She could still see the pain in his eyes and hear the anger in this voice as he poured his heart out to her with a little help from some liquid courage. 

She’d seen him check her out before.  Sure.  But she’d chalked it up to typical guy behavior.  Ed did it all the time to her and to other women.  But she’d never thought that he’d reciprocated the feelings she’d had for him for all those years.  She’d convinced herself long ago that she was crazy and that things could never be like _that_ between them.  And now that she knew, now that she knew that she wasn’t crazy, she felt a little…pissed.  Honestly, she felt cheated of something, and she knew that was selfish.

But he’d waited up until the night before her wedding to tell her, and that just wasn’t sitting right.  She wanted answers.  She didn’t want to fight, but damn it, the longer she sat there, the madder she felt.  So she sat there, listening to the sounds of him rummaging around the spare room, hearing a low curse as he bumped into something.  For a moment, for his sake, she hoped he’d forgotten about his drunken admission, but at the same time, she hoped he remembered every word, because she needed there to be no secrets left between them.

She slipped out of bed the second she heard his door creak open. Just as she was getting out of bed, her phone buzzed. She looked down to see a message from Ed.  Without reading it, she put her phone aside and moved quickly to the door, stepping out into the hallway just in time to see Daryl reaching from the knob on the front door.

“Sneaking out on me?”  His shoulders hitched before he turned, and she could tell he looked like hell in the early morning light.

“Gotta get home and shower.  Got a big day ahead.”  He tried to muster up a somewhat friendly tone as Carol crossed the room to bridge the gap between them.  He cleared his throat and turned.

“So that’s it?” she asked.  His shoulders sagged a little, and Daryl paused with his hand on the knob.

“What’s it?”

“You’re just gonna pretend you didn’t say all the things you said last night?  It’s so easy to pretend you don’t remember, right?  I mean, you’ve pretended all these years, and that was pretty easy for you, wasn’t it?” He turned this, eyes flashing with a mix of emotions, anger at the forefront.

“You think it was easy?” he asked.  “You think it was easy watchin’ you fall for Ed knowin’ that there wasn’t a fuckin’ thing I could do about it?”

“Why didn’t you?” she asked, crossing her arms and she stepped a little closer.  “If you felt that way…”  He sighed then.

“It don’t matter.  It’s done now.  You know.  Let’s just move on.”  Carol shifted her weight from one foot to the other, digging her toes into the carpet. 

“That’s what you want?”

“What’s it matter what I want?  This is your day.  You’re getting what you want.”

“What the hell do you know about what I want?  What I _wanted_?”  She glared at him.  Daryl hung his head for a moment before pushing his hair out of his eyes.

“I’m tired.  I got the hangover from hell.  I just wanna go home and try to wash the smell of tequila off of me.  I don’t wanna think about it.  I just wanna forget.”

“Well, I can’t forget.”  Daryl looked down then, not even wanting to look her in the eye.  He couldn’t.  He’d taken this day and shot it all to hell, and he could honestly blame the tequila if he wanted to, but it had been building up for years.  There was so much left unsaid, and he knew if he didn’t walk away, he was going to say more and just dig himself in deeper. 

“M’sorry.”  He turned then.  “I’ll be there today.  I’ll do what you need me to do.  You’re my best friend, and I’ll be there.  Whatever you need.”  Then he was gone, and she felt like the floor had opened up to swallow her whole.

*~*~*~*~*~*

He groaned, leaning his forehead against the foggy bathroom mirror.  He looked better.  His face was smooth, he was clean, and he didn’t reek of booze.  But his eyes were blood shot, and his head was pounding, and he felt like he might die if given the chance. 

_Fucking idiot._

He felt his stomach clench at the thought of what he’d said to her, of how he’d acted.  She didn’t need that from him.  She needed his support, and all he’d given her was a handful of misery.  On top of feeling like shit, he now felt like the biggest asshole on the planet.

He groaned, leaning back and swiping his hand across the mirror.  He glared at his own rippled reflection in the blurry mirror.  He reached for an oversized towel and wrapped it around his waist, grabbing his toothbrush and squirting a fair amount of toothpaste over the bristles.  He brushed roughly until his gums hurt and then he spat into the sink and rinsed with spearmint mouthwash.

As he was running a comb through his hair to untangle the ends, he thought hard about chopping it all off.  The only reason he hadn’t cut it in nearly six months was because Carol had always gone on and on about how much she liked it, even if she did tease him about needing a haircut.  Plus, she’d run her fingers through his hair on more than one occasion, in that flirty, playful way that had never meant more than what it really was. Who was he kidding?

Just as he slammed his hand down over the light switch, he heard a soft knock at his front door.  It was almost too soft, and if he hadn’t been so quiet in his own self-loathing, he probably wouldn’t have heard it.

He paused.  Then the knock came again. 

He knew it was her, but under the circumstances, he hoped it wasn’t.  He honestly just wanted to get through the day so he could come back home and get shitfaced again.  He figured she’d understand his decision to skip the reception, considering the vows were going to be hard enough to stand through without wishing for lightning to strike him dead.

With all the strength he could muster, he padded barefoot down the hall, all too aware that the only thing covering him was the towel wrapped around his waist.

When he opened the door, she was standing there in a pair of black yoga pants and an oversized grey sweatshirt, and her short, dark auburn hair was sticking up in the back.  Dark sunglasses covered what he could only assume were dark circles under her eyes.

“Well, I knew you said you were goin’ for casual for the wedding, but you coulda at least added a little color.”  There was a hint of a smile tugging at the already tight line of her lips. 

“Can I come in?”

“Ain’t you s’posed to be gettin’ ready to get married?”  He stepped out of the way, and Carol’s shoulder brushed his chest as she walked by.  She pulled off her sunglasses and tossed them on a table nearby before hugging her arms to herself. 

“You never told me,” she said quietly, when he stepped into the living room, hands at his hips, mostly to have a hand ready should his towel start to shift but partly to try to make himself look a little more angry than he was actually feeling.  He honestly wasn’t angry now.  Not at her, anyway.  He was mad at himself for being such a pussy.  It had taken a few shots of tequila to get the truth out of him, and now he was just left feeling empty.

“No, I didn’t,” he said quietly.  “But now you know.  We already went over that.  So why are you here?”  Carol narrowed her eyes at him.

“Are you…are you mad at me?  Because I think if anybody here has the right to be mad, it should be me.  Because I was fine.  I was getting married today.”

“Was?”

“And you had to keep digging, had to make me feel like I was making a mistake.  And maybe I was.  Maybe it’s a huge mistake.  But it’s _my_ mistake to make.  And I was fine!  I was…I was doing just fine.”

“That why you wanted to get drunk with me the night before your wedding?  That why you’ve been actin’ nervous and askin’ me to reassure you every day for the last month?  If you was so sure, you wouldn’t be here right now.” 

“Do you know how many years I waited for you to just making a fucking move?  I was scared.  I didn’t know how to read you.  And when I thought I could read you, I had already convinced myself that it was all in my head and that you didn’t want me, because we were friends and that was it.”  Her words stung like fire, and he flinched, taking a step back. 

“You…”

“Yeah.  Me.”  She ran her fingers through her hair, and he saw her blinking back the tears.  “And I wasn’t fine.  I needed a reason.  I needed _you_ to give me a reason.  But you never did.  You just stood by, and I…and I love Ed.  I mean, I don’t love him the way I probably should, but he’s been good to me.”  She sniffled, watching him stare at her, mouth slightly open, eyes narrowed as he tried to process everything she was telling him.  “I could marry him today.  I could say those vows and promise to love him and to honor him, but it would be a lie.  We both know it.  You know it.  I do.  Because no matter what I do, no matter what, it’s always you.  You’re the one I want to see at the end of the day.  You’re the one I’ve been thinking about when I should be thinking about Ed.  And I’m not proud of it.”  She bit her lip and shook her head.  “I’m a mess.  But at least now I know I’m not the only mess.  And now I’m just pissed off, because we’ve wasted so much time.” 

“You’re pissed at me ‘cause you were in love with me and never told me?”

“No!” she balked.  “I’m pissed because I’m still in love with you, and now I know you’ve been in love with me, and we’re both so stupid.  We’re so stupid, because it should be _us._ We should be…”  He stepped forward, cupping her face with his hands, fingers gently caressing her jaw as he crushed his mouth down over hers, kissing her fiercely as her lips parted in a gasp and her fingers moved to thread through his hair. 

She stumbled backwards, fingers knotting against his scalp until he had her pressed against the front door, hands moving down her shoulders and to her hips, pulling her closer as her arms snaked around his neck. 

And then he pulled back.  He pulled back so quickly that Carol gasped in surprise, her bright blue eyes opening wide to stare at him as her breaths came in heated puffs. 

“I can’t.”  The words pained him almost as much as the hurt in her eyes.

“Can’t or won’t?”

“You’re engaged.”  She looked down before reaching for his hand and bringing it to her chest, placing it over her heart.

“Was.”

“Was?”

“I called Ed.  I broke it off an hour ago, and I don’t know what that says about me.  But I know one thing.  It hurt a hell of a lot less than watching you walk out that door this morning.”  She watched his shoulders hitch with a ragged breath, and she reached for him then, walking him back into her, pulling her hands up to his neck, bringing his face down close to hers.  She stood on her tiptoes and pressed a soft kiss to his forehead.  “And even when you’re mad at me, even when I’m mad at you, you’re still my best friend.  And I love you.”  She sniffled then when his lower lip trembled and he bit down on it.  “We’ve wasted so much time.  And if you don’t still feel…”

“Stop.”  He brought his hands down to her waist, tugging her closer.  “I never stopped.”  It was her turn to bite back a sob, and she closed her eyes, burying her face against his neck, breathing in the scent of his skin. When she finally pulled back to look at him again, her eyes were wet with tears.  He traced his thumb along her jaw and behind her ear, tucking back a stray wisp.  “Love you so damn much.”

“I love you, too,” she whispered, before his lips settled over hers again, this time in a gentle kiss as he pulled his arms around her and brought her in close.  And for the first time in what felt like a long time, she genuinely smiled against his lips until they were both grinning like idiots.  And then she took his hand and gave it a squeeze.  Without words, she turned and started down the hall to his room, butterflies tumbling around in her belly in that way that she always felt when she was happy, in that way that she’d never felt with Ed but ignored for the sake of her own heart.  And when he squeezed her hand back, she peeked over her shoulder and saw the love in his eyes that she’d always felt in her heart.  It had always been him.  He was her best friend.  He truly was _the_ best man, and lucky for her, he was finally hers.


End file.
